Wang Teng is diving into AI sleep, and Today Yixiu has secured another round of financing.
Wang Teng stepped into the spotlight.
The investment community has learned that the sleep health company ISHO founded by Wang Teng has completed a new round of financing. In this round, CMC Capital, Honghui Capital, and Junli Capital were introduced, while Hillhouse Ventures, Yunjiu Capital, and Lingzhi Fund continued to make oversubscribed follow - up investments.
This former general manager of the marketing department of Xiaomi China and general manager of the REDMI brand has chosen to enter the sleep health track. As the age - old business of "rest" is being reimagined by AI, the story of ISHO begins.
Former Xiaomi Executive Wang Teng Starts a Business
Hillhouse Ventures Continues to Increase Investment
Wang Teng is no stranger to the industry.
In 2016, at the age of 29, Wang Teng joined Xiaomi. Starting as a product manager in the mobile phone department, he was promoted all the way to the general manager of the marketing department of Xiaomi China and the general manager of the REDMI brand, becoming one of the rare "dual - general managers" within the group and being called the "operator of Redmi" in the industry. At that time, his personal Weibo had 1.86 million followers, making him one of the Xiaomi executives with great influence among users.
Compared with pure - tech entrepreneurs, Wang Teng is more familiar with how a hardware product goes from concept and supply chain to the mass market. These experiences also laid the groundwork for his later entrepreneurial path.
In January this year, Wang Teng announced the establishment of ISHO, entering the sleep health track. The company's English name is ISHO, which means "Inner Strength High Output" - accumulating energy and releasing high efficiency. In the view of ISHO, rest is for a better comeback.
Why sleep? When talking about his entrepreneurial motivation, Wang Teng said that after communicating with his friends, he found that problems such as poor sleep quality and lack of energy caused by life and work pressure are common.
In his view, this is also the right time. In the past decade, China's consumer electronics industry has developed a globally leading supply chain system and engineering capabilities. At the same time, AI technology is moving from concept to application. The sleep health field, which has long - standing pain points but has not been systematically transformed, is starting to present new opportunities.
What ISHO wants to seize is precisely this window of opportunity.
According to ISHO's vision, the company's products are not just smart mattresses, smart pillows, or wearable devices. Instead, it builds a system - level energy management engine around sleep data and AI analysis.
To help people sleep better, ISHO is trying to take a step further. Since its establishment, the company has cooperated with domestic universities and research institutions to conduct research in the fields of sleep science, brain science, and clinical medicine. Based on these understandings, ISHO uses multi - modal sensors to continuously collect physiological, environmental, and behavioral data without the user's awareness, gradually forming an "energy profile" for each user.
The role of AI in this is not just to output sleep scores. It needs to continuously understand the user's state and participate in sleep improvement and daytime energy management: making adjustments according to changes in the body and environment at night and providing personalized energy allocation and efficiency suggestions during the day. All decisions are based on models trained with massive data, and the more you use it, the better it understands you.
In other words, what ISHO ultimately wants to deliver is a 24/7 online AI energy butler.
Investors came quickly. When the company was just established, it completed a seed - round financing of tens of millions of yuan, with investors including Hillhouse Ventures, Zhiyuan, and Yunjiu Capital. At that time, Wang Teng said that the company was rapidly building its team and planned to launch sleep - related smart products in the second half of 2026 for the global market.
Just a few months later, the second - round financing followed. The investment community has learned that ISHO has completed a new round of financing. In this round of financing, well - known technology and consumer investment institution CMC Capital and healthcare investment institution Honghui Capital were introduced. At the same time, old shareholders Hillhouse Ventures, Yunjiu Capital, and Lingzhi Fund continued to make oversubscribed follow - up investments. The funds will be mainly used for team building, product R & D, and commercialization.
From consumer electronics to sleep health, Wang Teng has chosen a market that is closer to people and requires long - term companionship. AI is changing this age - old business, and ISHO has started a new story.
The Sleep Business is Being Reimagined by AI
Sleep health is a big business.
The "China Sleep Research Report (2025)" shows that the average nightly sleep duration of the middle - income group in China is 6.85 hours, lower than the health standard; 45.43% of the respondents go to bed after 0:00 am, and their sleep time is highly fragmented. Another set of data shows that the scale of China's sleep health industry is expected to exceed one trillion yuan by 2030.
With the demand in sight, the industry is also changing. In addition to traditional categories such as mattresses, pillows, and aromatherapy, a new product line is taking shape: wearable devices are responsible for monitoring the body's state, smart mattresses and smart pillows target the bedroom scenario, and AI models are responsible for understanding the user's sleep rhythm and providing proactive intervention plans.
Overseas, representative companies have emerged first. In October 2025, the smart ring brand Oura completed a financing of over $900 million, with a valuation of $11 billion; in March this year, the AI sleep technology company Eight Sleep completed a financing of $50 million, with a valuation of $1.5 billion.
Turning our attention to the domestic market, many players are accelerating their entry. At the beginning of this year, Stareep, a smart mattress brand under the Dreame ecosystem, announced the completion of a second - round financing of nearly 100 million yuan, with a post - investment valuation of 1 billion yuan, only about three months after its first - round angel financing.
Sleep is becoming an important battlefield for the next - generation smart home.
The reason is not complicated. The bedroom is one of the scenarios where people stay the longest and the data continuity is the strongest in the family. When a person is in a sleep state, data such as heart rate, breathing, body temperature, turning over, environmental temperature and humidity, noise, and light all have long - term monitoring and analysis value. Compared with scenarios such as the living room and kitchen, sleep devices are closer to the body and are more likely to form a stable data entry point.
But the real threshold of this track lies here. Simply connecting the mattress to the Internet or making sleep data into a report is difficult to really impress users. What users care about is how to sleep better. In other words, the competition in sleep products is shifting from hardware parameters to real improvement effects and from single devices to system - level solutions.
This is also the opportunity for ISHO to enter. Traditional bedding companies are good at manufacturing and distribution channels, consumer electronics companies excel in hardware and supply chains, and healthcare companies are proficient in sleep science. But to truly connect monitoring, analysis, intervention, and long - term management into a closed - loop still requires a new product logic.
AI is making all this clearer.
A truly effective sleep system not only tells users "how they slept last night" but also further understands "why they slept poorly" and provides an answer to "how to sleep better next time". Behind this, it requires stable hardware support, continuously accumulated individual data, and long - term understanding of the body state, sleep rhythm, and environmental changes by the model.
Sleep is just the starting point. The greater imagination lies in that when the device can continuously understand a person's recovery state, energy changes, and life rhythm, sleep health is no longer just a night - time business but extends to all - day energy management.
For the entire industry, the competition has just begun.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Investment World AI", written by Wang Lu and published by 36Kr with authorization.